What if I lived in Germany

Saturday, March 22, 2008 by Dave Winer.

Michael Markman sent a pointer to another Wright sermon video, which I watched. The one that ends with God Damn America.

I was born here, I love this country, it gave sanctuary to my parents and grandparents. I am a product of Jewish Europe, transplanted in, welcomed by, the United States of America. I owe my existence to this country, and never forget it.

So God Damn America, to me, is bad. What a thing for a man of religion to say. A man who believes in god, to whom damnation is real.

On the other hand...

The rest of the sermon, the part leading up to that conclusion, is reasonable, and makes the ending understandable, even if I don't support it.

Then I wondered, what if I had been born in Germany instead of the U.S. The country that treated my ancestors the same way Wright's ancestors were treated by the U.S.

How would I have made the adjustment?

What if my country's flag had a swastika on it?

What if my country hadn't fully expressed its shame over burning my ancestors in ovens. Treating them like animals. Implementing a "final solution" on my race that somehow left me living. What if they expected me to love that country the same way the ancestors of the people who destroyed my ancestors do?

In the privacy of a cultural gathering of Jews living in a German city under a Nazi government in the 21st Century, might we say God Damn Germany for what it did to my people?

Dave Winer, 53, pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in Berkeley, California.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.